Authors : Angel Gonzalez-Delgado, Jeffrey Leon-Pulido and Yeimmy Peralta-Ruiz
Abstract: Organic load present in wastewater and local environmental conditions, encourage the growth of biomass potentially exploitable in biotechnological processes, microbiota produced in Colombian wastewater treatment plants presents high biomass productivity and high lipid yield compared with other third generation biofuels sources. In this research, three routes of biodiesel production from Wastewater microbiota (WTP) were evaluated by varying the method of lipid extraction: Hexane-Based Extraction (HBE), extraction assisted with High-Speed Homogenization (SHE) and extraction using Ethanol/Hexane mixture (EHE), the evaluation was carried out under a technical approach by process simulation and evaluation of potential environmental impacts. Simulation was performed using Aspen Plus v.8.8, based on real macroscopic composition of the WTP microbiota and real process efficiencies based on experimental information. The environmental assessment was performed using the WAR algorithm taking into account 8 impact categories. Results shows that for a processing capacity of 47 kt/y, SHE pathway presents the highest lipid recovery efficiency in comparison to HBE and EHE pathways, however, the best alternative is not suitable for large-scale processing due to high energy requirements. In the other hand, EHE route presents a lower potential environmental impact generated due to complete transformation of highly harmful substances into other with lower toxicity. In addition, HBE topology presents higher risks associated with toxicity of the solvents used.
Angel Gonzalez-Delgado, Jeffrey Leon-Pulido and Yeimmy Peralta-Ruiz, 2017. Simulation and Environmental Assessment of Alternatives for Biodiesel Production Using Residual Microbiota from Colombian Wastewater. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 12: 5239-5246.